With all the snow, garage sales have been thin on the ground for the last couple of weeks. However, we did go to an amusing estate sale Friday. What makes an estate sale fun, you ask? We love a house stuffed to the gills with interesting things AND reasonable prices–it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. Friday’s estate sale had it all, in spades! We both had as much stuff as we could reasonably carry, and yet I spent less than $20 for my pile. It’s not just the loot; we like to look at the house, other people, the decor–it’s all grist for the Second Hand Roses mill.

So here are the linens (and a couple of interlopers) that I bought:

I have a thing for aprons (I know, what don’t I have a thing for?) and especially the ones with stitching, rickrack, or hankies to dress them up. These six aprons were $3; I only wanted two of them, but of course they were in separate bundles. Hmmm, maybe they could be a blog give-away; we spare no expense for our loyal readers. At the back of the apron picture there is a hand-woven basket with a lid; I think it was 50¢. The Scotty linen napkins on the right came in a bundle of six, and are in good shape except for one which has some issues with the binding. Sitting on the napkin is a stylized globe from the 1964 World’s Fair. It is just the kind of little tchotcke that I can’t leave alone! It will mystify the people who come to my estate sale and wonder what kind of lunatic collected all this odd stuff.

I did buy a couple of bags of jewelry:

I really wanted the 10x loupe in one bag, and there was also a nice necklace and a pair of pearl earrings. In the other bag were the three pairs of old screw-type earrings that are decorated with jade, coral, and carved serpentine. I’m not crazy about the serpentine ones, but of course they are in a 12K gold setting. The dark green beads are probably jade too, which is one of my favorite stones. So all in all, there was enough fun in the two bags to justify the $9 I spent on them.

We each bought a bag of birds that were probably part of some craft project, and I bought a bag of old cookie cutters because they had unusual cutters in them. Kathy will have to tell you what she bought because I can’t remember.

(Kathy) Here’s a photo of the highlights: an orphan linen runner, a set of 11 cocktail napkins (where did that twelfth rooster go?), a basket (I wasn’t smart, and picked up a small one that was no help at all for shopping!), cloisonne beads, a couple of the birds from our respective bags, and a nifty leaping gazelle that is headed for wall decor in a diorama. I am not showing the bags of fabric, as really who needs to know that I brought more of that home?

There was a cool china beer keg and mugs, which didn’t come home with us:

The price was right, but it just wasn’t our kind of thing. You can see by the sake bottle next to the keg, that it was pretty small. One bomber beer bottle and it would be full to overflowing. It was obvious to us that the homeowners were crazy about Asian decor, but they had pretty lamentable taste for the most part. Lots of the china was clunky, not valuable, or all that attractive. There were a bunch of books on collecting Asian pottery, cloisonné, and china, but we didn’t see too much that floated our boats. Probably some eagle-eyed shopper scooped up all the good stuff before we got there.

We had to laugh at this huge potpourri container in the bathroom:

The color sure isn’t in our palette, and those clunky decorations on the pot are the kiss of death! We were trying to decide why they needed such a big (more than a foot tall) container of potpourri anywhere in the house–maybe they were keeping pet skunks in the spare bedroom.

This set was in the basement, which seemed appropriate:

I can’t think of a use for this pitcher and glass set, unless we’re talking white elephant gifts, or target practice. That pea-green color just needs to disappear, the sooner, the better.

After all that fun, we headed off to Goodwill certain (mistakenly as it turned out) that we would stumble upon a great find there. Of course we did stumble upon finds, but they were blog fodder:

Okay, this is really cute, but it made us laugh to see such a tiny hot pad, and that it was hung on such a huge hanger. Hopefully it was just for looks, because 2 inch x 2 inch hot pad isn’t going to get you anywhere except the emergency room with second degree burns.

I’m hoping that this was someone’s first clay-shaping pottery class project:

If the color doesn’t put you off, than surely the subject matter will. I really wouldn’t enjoy having a lizard’s business that close to my mouth, or his foot in the corner of my eye. I don’t mind lizards in real life, but this mask just gives me the willies.

Talking about having the screaming meemies, what do you make of this?

Is someone out collecting four and twenty blackbirds for a pie, tired of The Raven croaking “Nevermore”, or rescuing a bird from the La Brea tar pits? I just can’t get a handle on what is being portrayed here. I like ravens and I didn’t even want to touch this one to move it on the shelf for a better picture.

We were amused with these glasses:

The second picture has a flash so you can see all the details on the walnut decoration. Kathy was pretty amused by these, and there will be a bar in her new house; we ruefully decided that her husband would not be amused by this set of glasses. Here in Colorado, we would probably have to oil the wood to keep it from drying and splitting.

While we didn’t buy all that much at Goodwill, you can see that other shoppers were having a whee of a time:

This is the person we always get behind when checking out–especially when we are hungry and cranky!

3 Responses to Estate Sale Action

First off…best wishes to you and your minions for a great Mothers Day.
Next…you ruined ;-0 a perfectly delightful post by going to the thrift store and putting in the results here. I was enjoying your journey through the estate sale all the while wishing I had really been with you. It’s 9 months since we moved and I’ve forgotten the tons of stuff I gave away before moving. It was enough to furnish another house. Sigh.
Anyway, that thing with the lizard would look good partially buried in a garden. Maybe mostly buried. At second glance it looks like it’s made out of shiny bread-like challah.
Cheers.

Happy Mothers Day to you too! I have to agree that going to Goodwill was not the right move after such a nice estate sale–if only it had been garage sale season we might have skipped it all together. We often think it would be fun if we could have more readers shop with us; the couple of times that it has happened have been tons of laughs.